


Better Than Before

by samariumwriting



Category: Fire Emblem Echoes: Mou Hitori no Eiyuu Ou | Fire Emblem Echoes: Shadows of Valentia
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Roommates/Housemates, Friends to Lovers, Friendship, M/M, Past Character Death, Post-Canon, Slow Build, Twin characters
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-04-10
Updated: 2019-12-13
Packaged: 2020-01-10 22:57:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,401
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18417605
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/samariumwriting/pseuds/samariumwriting
Summary: Alm has not had the best year. Between food shortages, cults, politics, and finding and losing a family, things have been pretty rough. He just wanted to get on with his life, and move on a little from the past. The only problem is that it feels like everything is trying to keep him in that past, and his roommate being the brother of one of the biggest reminders isn't helping at all.





	1. Arrival

Alm pushed the strap of his bag up higher on his shoulder and stared the building in the face. The United Valentia University. Right above the entrance, there was a statue of a man whose face wasn’t familiar enough to him. At the base of the statue, a collection of fresh flowers and wreaths.

Alm closed his eyes, sucked in another deep breath, and headed towards the main office. There was quite the group queued outside, waiting to be registered properly, and Alm joined the back of the queue. He was...nervous, he supposed. No one else was here alone, but Mycen hadn’t been able to get the day off from everything he needed to do. It was a shame, but there was nothing that could be done about it now.

Glancing at the length of the queue and how slowly it was moving, Alm pulled his phone from his pocket and messaged the group chat. Tobin had changed the name of it again; ‘alm support squad’ had become ‘ram takes on the world, Apparently’.

‘Stuck outside registration :/’ he wrote. ‘You’re all still heading here?’

‘We haven’t managed to extract Gray from bed yet,’ came Kliff’s almost immediate response. ‘So much for packing before sleeping, I think he only went to bed a couple of hours ago.’

Alm smiled. Of course something had held them up. Hopefully it wouldn’t take them too long to get here, but it looked like he was going to be on his own for the foreseeable future, at least. He’d have to deal with it somehow, in spite of his nervousness.

The person in front of him turned round after a few minutes of them both standing in the line quietly. He looked to be there with his parents, but they hadn’t been speaking the whole time Alm had been standing there. “Hello,” he said, offering a smile. Alm smiled back, hoping he didn’t look as nervous as he felt. “I’m Lukas. All this waiting around is a bit annoying, isn’t it?”

Alm shifted his weight a little. Right, normal introduction. He had to be normal. That was fine. “I guess it’ll only get worse as more people arrive,” he said. Wait, no, he had to introduce himself. “Um. I’m Alm. It’s good to meet you, Lukas.”

“It’s good to meet you too,” he said. “What are you studying?”

“Oh, uh, International Relations with Rigelian from scratch,” he said. It was a new course, specifically for the Zofian students joining the university from then onwards. The university had never taught Rigelian before.

“Oh, that’s an interesting choice,” Lukas said with a smile. Everything about him was so genuine, Alm couldn’t help but feel at ease. “I’m studying Zofian Literature.”

“Ohh, I have a friend who’s doing that!” he said. “Her name’s Fae.”

“Interesting,” Lukas said. “I imagine I’ll meet her at some point soon. I haven’t been able to spend that much time discussing books with people before. I’m sure my parents are despairing, they’re far more into science than I.”

On hearing that, Lukas’ parents laughed almost in unison, with a weak edge to it that told Alm that Lukas was probably telling the truth. It also confirmed what he’d thought pretty much from the moment Lukas had opened his mouth; he and his family were probably very, very rich. Mycen had mentioned that as much was normal for the university when it had been the Rigelian National University, but Alm had sort of hoped it had changed a little.

But Lukas seemed nice, so Alm didn’t exactly mind. There were going to be people with money wherever he went, the difference was made by if they were nice or not. And Lukas had been nothing but lovely so far, so that all seemed fine to him. They continued to chat for a little longer, Alm becoming very thankful that Lukas seemed to have no interest in his parents or why he was alone.

It took a while, but eventually he ended up at the front of the queue. He went to the table marked with ‘K-T’ to get his ID card and room key, and to his dismay, the person at the table stared at him when he asked for the envelope marked Rudolf. He was handed an envelope marked ‘Albein Rudolf’. Ah.

“Is there any way I can get this changed?” he asked. “I don’t really use that name. I don’t want it to change how people see me.”

“I’m sorry,” she said, “this is a legal document. You can’t change it, it’s needed to legally identify you.” And Alm couldn’t protest that it wasn’t his legal name, because he supposed it was. It was just never the name he’d used. It was like the picture was him but the name had nothing to do with him.

“I understand,” he said, but he couldn’t smile about it. “Sorry to bother you. Where is, uh,” he glanced at the little card attached to his key, “Block E?”

“If you go out of the doors and through the main courtyard, it’s the seventh door on the right in the second courtyard,” she said. “If you get lost there are loads of current students around, asking for directions should be no problem. And remember to get into the main hall for two this afternoon for a speech from the acting principal.”

“Yes, thank you,” Alm said, trying to ignore the obvious reference to the previous principal’s death. “H-have a good day.”

He stuffed his ID card in his pocket as soon as he was out of the room. He couldn’t help but feel disheartened by it; he hadn’t wanted things to be like this. He didn’t want anyone to know, it was one of the reasons he’d completely rejected having any photos of himself in the press. He just wanted to be normal old Alm, at least for as long as he could manage to be.

He pulled his suitcase along behind him as he made his way to his room, and he felt like he'd significantly underpacked. Everyone around him was bringing whole hordes of stuff along with them; some had five bags, six, and a rack for drying clothes on, and a box full of things for cooking. He just...hadn't really thought about all that. Because why would he? (Though, come to think of it, a saucepan would be handy.)

He didn't talk to anyone on the way up to his room. There'd be time for that. And he was just generally feeling a bit nervous, a bit overwhelmed. He needed to take a moment to breathe. He set his bag down on the ground, glad he'd made it into his room before his roommate, and flopped down on the bed that was further from the door. It was fine, he was going to be okay, he just needed a minute.

The room wasn’t too bad, honestly. A little bit small for two people, but he hadn’t exactly been expecting it to be large. There were two desks, and two sets of shelves, and in the far corner was the door to their shared bathroom, which they also shared with the room next door. That was going to be interesting. There was a nice, large window that looked out onto the second courtyard. It was nice; larger than his room at home, though he’d never shared that with anyone.

It took a few minutes, but soon he felt less exhausted, less overwhelmed, and he sat up, pulling his phone out of his pocket. ‘We’ve left now, how’s it going?’ read the message in the group chat, again from Kliff.

‘Just got into my room,’ he replied. ‘They put Albein Rudolf on my ID :/’

‘dude that’s not fair!!’ came an immediate message from Gray, followed by ‘^^^’ from just about everyone in the group. ‘That’s wack, and it sucks. They shoulda listened to you.’

‘Yeah,’ he replied. ‘Not much I can do about it though. Guess I’ll just have to deal with people knowing.’ He heard the rattled of a key in the door then, and shot upright before he realised that it was probably his roommate outside. ‘I think my roommate is here, talk to you later.’ Alm sat up properly on his bed and crossed his legs before adopting a consciously casual looking pose. This would be fine, he just needed to come across as reasonable. Reasonable, normal, and just a perfectly fine roommate, and he just had to hope that the person coming in through the door would be the same.


	2. Roommate

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Alm meets his roommate, and it's definitely a surprise.

“Oh!” Honestly, Alm shared the same reaction as the person who gasped as soon as he opened the door. He was also on the verge of going to whoever was in charge of rooms and complaining, because there was absolutely no way that this was an accident. “Hi, Alm.”

Prince Conrad, second in line to the throne of Zofia, stepped into the room, a look of genuine surprise on his face. “Hey Conrad,” he said, shifting under the man’s gaze. He was intensely aware of the figure behind Conrad; his twin sister. “Hi Celica.” He lifted his hand to wave to them both. He didn’t quite know what to do with himself; this was not something he’d prepared for. At all.

“It’s, uh, good to see you again Alm,” she said, offering a perhaps hesitant smile. Alm barely managed a smile back. “I didn’t expect to see you here. Sir Mycen didn’t mention anything of it to me.”

“And the reverse applies to you two,” he said, managing this time to summon up a smile. He hadn’t wanted things to be awkward like this. He hadn’t even known that Conrad and Celica would be here. Zofia had all kinds of much fancier universities that they could have attended. But then again, he could have attended those too, and here he was. “I guess I just...didn’t want people to know.”

“Agreed,” Conrad said. He shifted from one foot to the other, still stood in the doorway. “This is, uh, a little bit awkward. I wasn’t expecting to come face to face with someone I already knew.” Alm definitely agreed, and the mortified look on Celica’s face said the same. “Anth- Celica, did you want a hand carrying your stuff as well? I can help.”

“Well, seeing as introductions aren’t needed, it would be nice to have a hand,” she said. For a moment, Alm hesitated over volunteering to lend a hand as well. He didn’t want to seem too keen or anything, there were still a lot of difficult feelings between him and Celica that they hadn’t talked through yet, but...he didn’t want to look rude either. And he did want to help.

“I can lend a hand if you want,” he offered, trying not to search Celica’s body language for any reaction. What mattered was what she said, because all he’d done was offer to help. No other feelings or anything at all implied. Just being a good roommate and helping out said roommate’s older sister.

“No, that’s okay,” Celica said. “It’s another few buildings down and I’m sure you still want to settle in. I don’t have that much stuff and Conrad is always a willing packhorse.” With those words, she nudged Conrad in the ribs, and he smiled at her, but his eyes were still fixed on Alm. There was a look on his face that he didn’t know how to interpret.

“If you’re sure,” he said, smiling again. Celica nodded firmly. “Okay. Well, I’ll probably see you around, and I’ll see Conrad in a bit.” The two of them nodded and left, closing the door behind them, and Alm let out a sharp breath. Why did things have to be so complicated?

‘You guys better be getting here soon because I really need to talk to people who aren’t posh Zofians,’ he wrote in the group chat.

‘:( I’ll have you know I’m very high class’

‘No you’re not, Tobin. What’s your roommate like, Alm? Other than Zofian and posh’

‘My roommate is Conrad??? He just walked in with Celica????’

‘Press f for Alm’ It was now that Alm noticed that Gray’s nickname had been changed to ‘snores on car journeys’.

‘Oh, was everything okay??’

‘F’

‘f’

‘It was fine, Faye,’ he wrote. He closed his eyes for a moment and took a deep breath. How had it been? Awkward, yeah, but it was okay. Celica hadn’t said anything pointed, or anything that implied she was particularly unhappy with the situation. Alm hadn’t looked like he was trying too hard to make things up to her. It had been fine. ‘They were just both surprised.’

‘They just wanna limit the paparazzi to two rooms in the uni,’ Tobin suggested. ‘Stick Conrad and Alm in the same room and the number of students being harassed by the press goes down.’

‘That’s probably not a helpful sentiment for Alm,’ Kliff wrote.

‘Who’s even driving right now????’ Alm asked, hoping to divert the conversation a little. He didn’t really want to dwell on his slightly disastrous roommate situation. He’d have plenty of time for it to be disastrous without his friends talking about it.

‘Tobin is,’ Faye wrote. ‘Kliff is writing texts for him because Tobin says he doesn’t trust any of us, but Kliff doesn’t have any other friends to send anything compromising to.’

‘That’s fair,’ Alm said. ‘What time do you think you’ll arrive?’

‘Probably just a bit past one,’ Kliff replied. ‘We’re running late, because of someone who’ll remain unnamed. But we should still make it in time for that speech or whatever.’

‘Speech from the acting principal,’ Alm said. ‘I’ve met him a couple of times. He’s a nice guy.’ They just hadn’t met in the best of circumstances. He wished the whole thing could have just been...better, but he had to roll with the situation he’d landed in. He just hoped that the speech wouldn’t remind him of everything that had happened to reach this point.

A few moments later, the door opened again; Conrad had left it unlocked, and he entered again without warning. “I’m, um, back,” he said.

“I noticed,” Alm said, realising a moment later that he probably sounded way too sarcastic there, so he tried to smile in a way that looked friendly. It seemed to work, because Conrad smiled back. “You got all of Celica’s stuff to her room?”

“Yeah,” he said, moving to occupy the bed Alm wasn’t sitting on. “Her roommate is another familiar face, which is welcome. I know she’s capable and all, but it's so easy to worry, you know?”

“I know,” Alm said with a sigh. He knew very clearly what it was like to worry about Celica, and Conrad probably knew all the feelings with far more intensity. “For what it’s worth, I’m sorry she got tangled up in my family mess and things are like this for the pair of you.”

Conrad looked serious for a moment, but he was still smiling. “Funnily enough, I was going to say almost exactly the same thing to you,” he said. “So that clears the air a lot. There’s no blame in this situation, so don’t worry.”

“Thanks,” Alm said, smiling again. “It’s good to know that.” Fully aware that he looked incredibly awkward, he looked away from Conrad’s intense gaze. He needed to change the subject before something went wrong. “What, uh, what are you and Celica studying?”

“Anthise is studying Maths,” Conrad said, and Alm pulled a face. Of course she was, she was ridiculously smart and talented. Sometimes it felt like there was nothing she couldn’t do. “I’m studying History and International Relations.”

“Oh, I’m doing International Relations too,” he said. He remembered, when he’d looked through the courses available, that they combined that with a lot of things. He hadn’t spoken to his father about the university much, but he could tell exactly what the intention behind that was. “And one of my friends, Kliff, is studying History. Did...have you met him before?”

“I think so,” Conrad said, a thoughtful frown on his face. “Was he at anything in particular that I’d remember him from?”

Alm paused for a moment, and then remembered where Conrad would have met him. Maybe he shouldn’t have mentioned it at all. “He came to Emperor Rudolf’s funeral,” Alm said. “All my friends did. So you might have met him…”

“Yes, briefly, I think,” Conrad said, and Alm realised he’d managed to make the conversation awkward again. That really hadn’t taken him long. “That was quite a busy time, with a lot of new faces and names. I’m sure I’ll recognise him when I see him.”

Alm nodded. He really, really needed to change the subject. “I, uhh, how have things been? In the last month. You were in Zofia, right?”

“Mostly,” Conrad said. “I went back to where I’d been living in eastern Rigel for a couple of days, but mostly Zofia, yes. There were a lot of things to do, and I wanted to help Anthise. Celica. And you?”

Alm nodded. He hadn’t really been talking about the business side of things, but that worked. Maybe they’d have to get all the formal awkwardness out of the way before he could ask Conrad how he’d been, rather than what he’d been doing. “A couple things,” he said. “Mostly stuff I didn’t understand. They didn’t really teach me much because I was never planning on taking the whole thing on until I’m done here, you know?”

“It’s the same with Anthise,” Conrad said. “I suppose it’s good that they’re letting us take that step back. I don’t think I’m ready to have responsibility.” He chuckled, and Alm forced a smile onto his face. These kinds of conversations were so exhausting. It just set his mind thinking about all the responsibility he’d had, all the things he shouldn’t have had to endure.

“Enough about all of that, though,” Alm said firmly. “How have you really been? Outside of business and where you’ve been.”

“Oh,” Conrad said, letting out a small laugh. “I hadn’t really thought about that.” Alm, honestly, was not in the least bit surprised to hear it. Conrad didn’t strike him as the kind of person who was particularly selfish, not even to a healthy degree. “I’ve been okay. Perhaps fine is a better word. Not good, but not bad either. What about you?”

“It’s honestly been really rough,” he said. He didn’t want to go into details or anything, but he also didn’t want to lie - he hadn’t been at his best lately. “But this should be better! I hope, anyway. It should be nice to have something to focus on.”

“I’m sorry to hear that it’s been hard,” Conrad said, and then his face fell slightly. “Sorry, that was too formal. It’s so easy to forget with...everything.” He waved a hand to sort of gesture into the air. Alm got pretty much exactly what he was saying. Sometimes it was hard to turn off and just act like he was a real person.

He laughed. “Yeah, it really can be,” he said. “But we’ve got ages to work on it, so I wouldn’t worry. I’m sure we can work out some kind of familiarity that doesn’t cause a court drama every time we interact with each other.”

At that, Conrad coughed, but he didn’t elaborate on what had come to mind when Alm said that. Actually, that had quite a lot of implications he didn’t want to bring up, and he was about to open his mouth to apologise when Conrad finally spoke. “I feel like we might be making a couple of waves regardless of what we do,” he admitted, his face twisted into a small frown. That expression was far too familiar for Alm to be comfortable with seeing it.

“Perhaps,” he said, trying to keep the air between them light. It was...harder than he’d thought. But they’d managed to keep the conversation away from funerals for a while, at least. “Don’t let me become a hermit to avoid the press?”

“Only if you’ll do the same for me,” Conrad said with a laugh. Alm smiled in return, feeling a little lighter already. Yeah, this was going to be fine. This was going to be just fine.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! :) if you have any thoughts, please leave a comment down below or you can hit me up on twitter @samariumwriting


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